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Telecom adds a slice of paradise to data roaming

Telecom announced today some changes to its pricing for international data roaming when customers use their smartphones and other mobile devices while travelling overseas.

The popular $10 flat daily rate has been extended to two new destinations – Indonesia and Thailand, and voice calling from these destinations will decrease from $3.49 a minute to $2.49 a minute.

Indonesia is becoming increasingly important in terms of economic ties and now ranks as New Zealand’s ninth biggest export market, while Thailand is a popular holiday destination for many New Zealanders as well as being 15th in the export market rankings.

Telecom’s innovative flat rate pricing gives customers the freedom to use data on their mobile phones as they would in New Zealand, while having peace of mind around what this will cost them. Collectively, these markets represent more than 96% of international data roaming traffic by volume.

In other changes:

In light of customer usage patterns over the past 12 months, Telecom is ending the $6 per day concessional flat rate for Australia and aligning pricing for Australia with that for the 13 other flat rate markets, at $10 a day.

Telecom is also increasing the pricing for data roaming in “Zone 3” countries (mostly much smaller travel markets in Asia and Europe) from $2.50 per MB to $3.00 per MB.

All changes will take effect from 3 February 2014.

Craig Parnham, Telecom’s head of mobile products, says: “Flat rate data roaming has proved to be tremendously popular with our customers over the past year, contributing to a more than seven-fold increase in international data roaming volumes – that’s roughly eight times faster than the increase in domestic data volumes.

“When we introduced daily flat rate roaming in December 2012, we priced Australia at a specially reduced rate of $6.

"More than a year on, after a thorough review of customer usage patterns, we have decided that the $10 price point is required to make the certainty and simplicity of the offer commercially sustainable.”

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